Larry Hurtado

https://www.michaeljkruger.com/a-tribute-to-larry-hurtado-scholar-doktorvater-and-friend/

Was there a 2C recension of the NT?

Charles Hill (“‘In These Very Words’:  Methods and Standards of Literary Borrowing in the Second Century,” pp. 261-81) provides a valuable study showing that pagan and Christian authors followed a different set of conventions in citing texts than used by copyists of texts.  This is a point I’ve tried to make for a number of years, and I’m pleased now to see this well-supported presentation of it.  The major point is that (contra some claims), we can’t play off the loose citations of NT writings in early Christian authors against the evidence of our early manuscripts to make a case that the NT writings were in a chaotic state until some supposed “recension” in the late second century that produced all our extant manuscripts.  In fact, the earliest manuscripts remain our best evidence for the text of NT writings.

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/the-early-text-of-the-new-testament-the-latest-scholarship/

“Resurrection Cults”

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2018/10/12/resurrection-cults-and-early-material-traces-of-christianity/

Gee, Dr. Carrier, You’re Really Upset!

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/gee-dr-carrier-youre-really-upset/

"Mythical Jesus"

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017/12/02/why-the-mythical-jesus-claim-has-no-traction-with-scholars/

What do they mean when they say “Development”?

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/how-we-see-historical-changes/

It’s not clear, for example, that Jesus-believers of Paul’s time (ca. 30-60 CE) thought of themselves, their faith and practices as “primitive” or “embryonic” of some more mature and complete form of Jesus-devotion that might be worked out across time. I get the impression, instead, that Paul (for example) thought of the convictions and teachings that he delivered as adequately formed and fully appropriate for his situation. So, if we refer to those early years of the Jesus-movement as embryonic or the seeds of something that developed later, I think that we’re importing a value judgment that isn’t based on the evidence.

The Absence Of A Papacy In Early Responses To Christianity

One way to study early Christianity is to look at it through the eyes of its opponents. I've often noted that the early opponents of Christianity describe the religion in a manner that contradicts Roman Catholic claims about church history. It's instructive to observe what men like Trypho, Celsus, and Caecilius tell us about early Christianity and what arguments they bring against the religion. It's also important to notice how individuals like Justin Martyr, Origen, and Minucius Felix respond on behalf of Christianity. Those early interactions between Christians and their critics provide us with a lot of evidence against the claims of Catholicism (and Eastern Orthodoxy, etc.) on the veneration of images, prayer to the dead, and other issues.

One of the most substantial problems for Catholicism in the early responses to Christianity is the absence of any reference to a papacy. Remember, Catholics often tell us how important the papacy allegedly is. We're supposed to think that it's the foundation of the church, central to Christian unity, an infallible source of Christian teaching, and so on. We're told how valuable the papacy is in the abstract and how practical it is, how it's such a good idea on so many levels to have such an office. We're often pointed to John 17:21, as if Jesus was referring there to denominational unity under Roman Catholicism and the papacy. Well, if we need to submit to the papacy "so that the world may believe" (John 17:21), shouldn't we expect the world to know that the papacy exists and to refer to it when discussing Christianity? Isn't that especially true during the earliest centuries of church history, when, according to many Catholics, there was such widespread and consistent unity under the Pope? What if, instead of acknowledging such unity and responding to it along the lines of John 17:21 or focusing on the papacy as one of the most foundational issues to be addressed (as we'd expect if Christianity was Roman Catholic at the time), the early responses to Christianity show no knowledge that a papacy even exists and sometimes make comments suggesting its nonexistence?

Something worth considering in this context is what Celsus, a second-century pagan critic of Christianity, said about Christian disunity and how Origen, a Christian, responded. See here.

Neither Celsus and his Jewish sources nor the other earliest non-Christian sources who comment on the religion refer to a papacy. And we have much more than documents like Justin Martyr's Dialogue With Trypho and Origen's Against Celsus to go by. Larry Hurtado notes:

"Whatever their actual success, clearly some Christians made impressive efforts to disseminate their works, not only among fellow believers, but more widely as well. Here again, it is difficult to find an equivalent effort by other religious groups of the day….Philo of Alexandria's Embassy to Gaius might serve as a kind of precedent. But the sheer number of Christian apologia [apologetic] texts is unprecedented." (Destroyer Of The Gods [Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2016], 132-3, n. 90 on 249)

Men like Aristides and Tertullian wrote apologies in which they responded to objections to Christianity and anticipated potential objections. They address the deity of Jesus, his virgin birth, his resurrection, the second coming, the inspiration of scripture, how to interpret various passages of scripture, Christian moral standards, the apostles, Christian teachers, the nature of the church, and many other topics. But they say nothing of a papacy, to explain it, defend it, anticipate objections to it, or anything else.

Larry Hurtado lecture on “Destroyer of the Gods”

Published on Oct 14, 2016
Lecture by Larry Hurtado “A New and Mischievous Superstition: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World” given September 10, 2016 at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, TX.

A Man Attested by God

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017/03/11/a-man-approved-by-god-a-review/

What Set Christianity Apart In The Ancient World

A New Testament scholar, Larry Hurtado, recently published a book about how ancient Christianity differed from and changed the world of its day. The book is titled Destroyer Of The Gods (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2016), and I recently finished posting a series of quotes from it on Facebook. Here's a listing of some of the topics covered, with links to each post:

Introduction, Why Christianity Succeeded, Constantine's Motives

Monotheism, Exclusivism, How The Christian View Of God Differed From A Jewish View

How Roman Opposition To Christianity Differed From Opposition To Other Religions, Christianity's Economic Impact

Early Christianity's Contribution To Religious Liberty

The Literary Character Of Early Christianity, Apologetics

Images, Altars, Sacrifices, Priesthood, Buildings, Baptism, Weekly Meetings, Prayer

Abortion, Infant Abandonment, Violence, Sex, Gender, Slavery

Love

Why does anyone become a Christian?

"Why does anyone become a Christian?" by Tim Keller.

How Early Christians Changed the Sex-Abuse Culture

They redefined the terms for it. From Larry Hurtado this morning:

The sexual abuse of children has now become a major and publicly recognized concern (and high time too!).  A recent study by John W. Martens shows that for early Christians, too, it was a major concern, and that this is reflected in what appears to be a distinctive early Christian vocabulary to refer to the practice:  John W. Martens, “‘Do Not Sexually Abuse Children’: The Language of Early Christian Sexual Ethics,” in Children in Late Ancient Christianity, eds. Cornelia B. Horn and Robert R. Phenix (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 227-54.

As Martens notes, there was a whole Greek vocabulary for the practice of having sex with children:  “pederastia” (“child-love”), “pederastes” (“child-lover”), etc.  Indeed, Roman-era poets and others celebrate the practice, and it seems to have been tolerated widely.  It was particularly slave-children who likely suffered the most.  But (and this is Martens’ contribution) in early Christian texts we see what appears to be a rejection of these benign and condoning terms in favour of terms to express forthrightly that the practice is evil and destructive [emphasis added].

In Christian texts from the second century onward, the person who engages in sex with children is called a “paidophthoros” (“child-corrupter/abuser”), and there is the prohibition, “do not corrupt/abuse children” (“me paidophthoreseis”).  Our earliest instances are in Epistle of Barnabas (10:6; 19:4) and Didache (2:2).  These terms seem to have been coined by early Christians to re-label and condemn the practice and those who engage in it:  Not “child-love,” but “child-corruption.”

Another important observation by Martens is that these texts show, not only that early Christians condemned the practice, but also that they recognized the need to avoid it among Christians.  The exhortations in these passages are in texts written primarily for Christians to read, and, along with the other exhortations, were intended to shape Christian behaviour collectively.

It’s fascinating to see how beliefs and stances on behaviour can generate terminology like this.  And it’s one indication of an early stage in the revolution in “sexual logic” generated by early Christianity that is described by Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).

"Stop talking about a first-century fragment of the Gospel of Mark!" - Larry Hurtado

This statement sums up Larry Hurtado's opinion on all this hearsay. I agree with him. Here are his reasons to stop talking about it:

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/a-first-century-copy-of-the-gospel-of-mark/

Lord and God

http://www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2014-07/lord-and-god

Predestinarian apocalypticism

To understand this, you have to enter into the “logic” of ancient theological thought, and especially “apocalyptic” thought.   I’ll sketch it briefly.  God doesn’t make up his game-plan as the game goes along, but has the plan (of world history, redemption, judgement, etc.) all laid out even before creation.  So, as God acts in revelation, each action is also an unveiling of his prior purpose and plan.  So, “eschatological” events were actually in God’s purpose from the beginning:  “final things = first things” (to paraphrase a scholarly formula). 

http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/jesus-pre-existence-etc-responding-to-questions/

Hurtado: “News on ‘Jesus Wife’ Fragment”

Update: Hurtado’s initial thoughts

To come to Prof. King’s article (the main piece in the issue), I think she takes a careful line, seeking to defend her view that the item on balance seems authentic, but trying to take account of data that require some modification of her earlier judgements, and granting in the end that complete certainty is not possible. Prominent in the modifications of her earlier view is the intriguing statement in the appended note at the end of the article that the carbon-dating (taking the dating by Tuross) now seems to demand a date sometime in the 8th century CE (not the 4th/5th century CE dating in her earlier paper). As she notes, this takes us well into the Islamic period of Egypt, and so raises the question of whether, in fact, the fragment might reflect in some way the influence of Islamic ideas about Jesus.

Certainly, as Prof. King has rather consistently emphasized all along, whatever the date and provenance of the item, it has absolutely no significance whatsoever for “historical Jesus” studies. Contrary to some of the sensationalized news stories, that is, the fragment has no import for the question of whether Jesus was married.

Instead, she continues to propose that the fragment may reflect tensions and questions about marriage, celibacy, child-bearing, and gender that emerged in early Christianity in the early centuries (indeed, to judge from NT texts such as 1 Tim. 4:1-5; and even 1 Cor 7:1-7, questions of this nature emerged quite early). But, to repeat a point, the revised date for the papyrus (mid-8th century CE) introduces other factors to consider as well.

Which ancient papyri are being carbon dated?

It appears as if there may be some movement in the story that Dan Wallace mentioned last year (in his debate with Bart Ehrman) about "the discovery of several New Testament papyri". As was noted in earlier reports, "the results of this study were to be published in a forthcoming book from E.J. Brill Publishing (notorious for publishing only top-quality scholarly works that none of us can afford)".

Now Larry Hurtado is reporting that he has recently returned from "an invitational conference in Oklahoma City on dating papyri (sponsored by the Green Scholars Initiative, hereafter GSI)". (It was "the Green Scholars Initiative" who had possession of these reportedly early papyri.)

Out of respect for the presenters of papers, I won’t pre-empt publication by giving details. But I can say that I found the presentations on Carbon-dating especially informative and also of some significant import.

Essentially the GSI has access to the Green Collection of manuscripts & Bibles, and several papyri were chosen for rigorous Carbon-dating. The papyri in question had been dated first palaeographically, and then very small snippets were submitted to three respected laboratories in the USA for independent dating by Carbon-14 processes....

To summarize results of the tests reported on in Oklahoma City, the results from the three labs were basically/broadly in agreement, which gives some assurance about the reliability of the process. But also, these results were broadly in agreement with the prior/independent palaeographical dating of these items. And this (as I see it) is the really larger import. It means ..., that palaeographical dating (using today’s standards and practices) by competent palaeographers can be treated as broadly reliable.

And that means that collections that don’t allow Carbon-dating can take some further basis for confidence in the practice of palaeographical dating of their items as well.

Now, you must understand that Carbon-dating can, at best, offer a date-span of X plus/minus 50 years or so, e.g., X dated ca. 150-250 CE. That’s no more narrow than responsible palaeographers would date an item. But, as I say, the Green Collection’s tests do give us a second basis for some confidence in palaeographical dating practice.

Hurtado: “Here’s where Wright is Wrong”

In several recent blog posts, Larry Hurtado has been reviewing N.T. Wright’s massive work, “Paul and the Faithfulness of God”. From his most recent blog post:

But my problems with Wright’s particular view stem in part from his accompanying notion that this one family/people of Abraham/God must be homogenous, and that for Paul the historic special significance of ethnic “Israel” as a people is now dissolved in God’s plans.

Now the notion that ethnic Israel has lost its former significance in God’s purposes and that the church has inherited all that once was attached to the people of Israel is a venerable Christian one, going back to the second century or so. But the question I have is whether Paul shared this view. I don’t think so.

Wright knows that this sort of view is often labelled “supersessionist” and he strenuously denies the charge. In his scheme, it isn’t so much that Israel is simply cast aside. Instead, Wright refers to a “reworking” of “Israel” in Paul. Briefly, here is how this works. First, he claims that ethnic Israel was called by God for the purpose of bringing God’s revelation to the world. Indeed, Wright repeatedly claims that Israel was chosen by God to be the vehicle of redemption. This is crucial in Wright’s argument.

Textual stability

http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/originals-for-nt-gospels/

More About Andrew Lincoln's Book On The Virgin Birth

Larry Hurtado has posted some comments on Andrew Lincoln's book about the virgin birth. For those who don't know, I responded to Lincoln's book in a series of articles last week. Here are a couple of significant posts from the comments section of Hurtado's thread:

My [Larry Hurtado's] review will appears sometime in the Spring 2014 in Expository Times, but I was assigned a limited number of words. So, it won’t be a really adequate engagement on critical issues. That’s something that the book certainly requires and deserves.

And Richard Bauckham commented:

One point at which Lincoln is wrong is that he claims biographers themselves made up stories about portents and remarkable events connected with the births of important people. (Miraculous births and conceptions as such are very rare, prophecies and portents more common.) What the biographers (Plutarch, Suetonius and others) actually do is report stories that were already circulating. They say so. Sometimes they report them without committing themselves to their truth. Sometimes they have no such stories, presumably because there were none available to them. So I don’t think we should assume that such things were understood as just a literary convention or conclude too readily that Luke would have just composed his birth narratives de novo.